Mzansi Life & Style showcases the best that South Africa has to offer in terms of entertainment, fashion, lifestyle, culture, cuisine, travel, beauty and celebrity news. Subscribe to my website by adding your email address in the "follow" button below.
Tapfuma Makina, one of South Africa’s favourite news and sports anchors, has been announced as the new Ultimate Braai Master (UBM) host for Season 8 (S8).
Rhodes University scholar, Tapfuma Makina’s plans to continue on and study medicine after completing his BSc in Biochemistry and Microbiology changed direction after becoming a presenter on campus radio revealed a natural talent for storytelling.
Now, after almost two decades in radio and television, as well as hosting and presenting premieres and awards across sports, enterprise and entertainment, broadcasting is in his professional DNA.
His distinctive voice, familiar to many from HeartFM, Top Billing, eNCA and beyond, has captured many SA broadcasting highlights in recent years.
With exclusive access to high-end music, great concerts, documentaries and never-seen archived interviews, the global music streaming platform, QWEST TV, officially launched on DStv channel 330 recently.
Music lovers will now be able to access QWEST TV via the DStv bouquet (channel 330) as well as on the Showmax platform. The Channel will be included in all the DStv packages in 44 countries across the continent.
Available exclusively to DStv customers, the channels offering includes:
Exclusive concerts from legendary artists as well as Rising Stars from across the globe
Premium music documentaries
Archived artist footage
Unreleased interviews with music icons including Erykah Badu, Questlove, Salif Keita, Gregory Porter, Marcus Miller, Seun Kuti, Kamasi Washington and Fatoumata Diawara
Founded in 2017 by musical genius, the legendary Quincy Jones, alongside TV and music producer and programmer Reza Ackbaraly, Qwest TV plans to bring genre-agnostic musical content to the African continent.
Every day, Shazam receives tens of millions of requests from users around the world who want to know more about the artist behind the song they’ve just discovered. These Shazams can come from anywhere—social media, car commercials, coffee shops, the mall —making them a powerful tool for predicting the next class of global superstars.
Today, Shazam unveils its annual Predictions 2023 playlist, a 50-track selection of artists that are perfectly poised to have a breakthrough year. Additionally, Shazam is spotlighting 5 artists from the list who have the potential to break out globally in 2023 and, for the first time, 5 artists who are gaining popularity regionally. Based on Shazam’s uniquely predictive data and algorithms, and coupled with the expertise of Apple Music’s global editorial team, this incredible selection of artists show early indicators of future growth — early and consistent momentum in Shazam activity, as well as discovery trends in more than one country.
Looking back at last year’s predictions, Shazam demonstrated, once again, its ability to uncover talent from every corner of the world earlier than any other service. Artists like the incredible Ayra Starr, who was one of Shazam’s five featured predictions last January, made Shazam’s Global Top 10 in October and is now being heralded as an artist to watch in 2023 by other platforms. Looking at streams, several listed artists saw their plays more than double on Apple Music worldwide from Dec. 1, 2021 through Nov. 30, 2022, compared to the previous 12 months, including Ivan Cornejo (+329%), DannyLux (+189%), Mina Okabe(+217%), La Zarra (+308%) and Lojay (+696%)
Overall, around half the artists featured in the Shazam Predictions 2022 playlist made Shazam’s Top 200 National charts and Apple Music’s Daily Top 100 charts. These artists were featured on 44 Shazam charts and 148 Apple Music charts. Three artists made Shazam’s national Top 10 and 13 made Apple Music’s. And two artists made national No. 1 on Shazam, and seven did the same in Apple Music, showing a plethora of amazing accomplishments by these artists over the course of 2022.
This year’s selection represents another remarkably global and diverse group of talented artists, hailing from all corners of the globe including Japan, Colombia, Spain, France, and Nigeria.
I recently attended the ESPN Sports Fest which showcased what one can look forward to on the Disney owned channel this summer.
The mainly American sports channel, ESPN, also has an African component highlighting some African Sports content.
I got to play some American Football and pretend I was an NBA player by shooting some hoops on the mini basketball court. Others in attendance tried their hand at shadow boxing, at the media event.
Kyle de Klerk, Director of Sports Commercial and Business at The Walt Disney Company, addressed the audience and showcased what locals can look forward to in a short promo video – as can be seen in my TikTok & Instagram video below.
TCL, one of the dominant players in the global TV industry and a leading consumer electronics brand, launched its latest line of Google LED TVs in a glittering event held at the Galleria Sandton. Adding to an already impressive range of televisions, TCL unveiled the feature packed C835, C735, C635, P735 and P635 products, with the brand quickly making headway into the South African market.
Global Outlook
Globally, TCL is now the No.2 ranked LCD TV brand and holds the top positions in many key markets. It also ranks as the No.1 Android TV brand in the world and its smart TVs rank in the top five in more than 20 countries and regions by sales volume, growing by over 52% YoY in European and over 38% in emerging markets respectively. It is also the No. 2 and No. 3 ranked LCD TV Brand in the US and France respectively in terms of Sales Volume in 2021.
With the brand growing at rapid pace globally, TCL announced its worldwide partnership with the Brazil football team, revealing their four football brand ambassadors – English midfielder Phil Foden, rising superstar and Spanish international Pedri, Brazilian winger Rodrygo and famed French defender Raphaël Varane to symbolize and reflect their brand motto – Inspire Greatness.
Mzansi Life & Style by Mishkah Roman-Cassiem 